The sense thrills through you of some pitiless Power Who scowls at once your father and your foe;

XVII.

Who lets his children wander at their whim,
Choosing their road, as though not bound by him

But all their life is rounded with a shade,
And every road goes down behind the rim!

XVIII.

And there behind the rim, the swift, the lame,
At different paces, but their end the same,

Into the dark shall one by one go down,

Where the great furnace shakes its hair of flame.

XIX.

:

Oh
ye who cringe and cower before the throne
Of him whose heart is fire, whose hands are stone,
Who shall deliver you from this death in life
Strike off your chains, and make your souls your

own?

W. H. MALLOCK.

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

(III., 1-30.)

THEE,1 who first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise on high so bright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek race, and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed in thy imprinted marks, not so much from a desire to rival thee as that from the love I bear thee I yearn to imitate thee; for why need the swallow 1 Epicurus.

contend with swans, or what likeness is there between the feats of racing performed by kids with tottering limbs and by the powerful strength of the horse? Thou, father, art discoverer of things, thou furnishest us with fatherly precepts, and like as bees sip of all things in the flowery lawns, we, O glorious being, in like manner feed from out thy pages upon all the golden maxims, golden I say, most worthy ever of endless life. For soon as thy philosophy issuing from a godlike intellect has begun with loud voice to proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled, the walls of the world part asunder, I see things in operation throughout the whole void; the divinity of the gods1 is revealed and their tranquil abodes which neither winds do shake nor clouds drench with rains, nor snow congealed by sharp frosts harms with hoary fall: an ever cloudless ether o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely round. Nature too supplies all their wants and nothing ever impairs their peace of mind. But on the other hand the Acherusian quarters are nowhere to be seen.

H. A. J. MUNRO.

1 The well-known description of the gods of the Epicureans in Tennyson's Lucretius is a reminiscence of this passage, which in its turn goes back to some lines in the Odyssey of Homer.

2 No abiding place of the dead is discerned by the poet in the plan of the universe revealed to him. As an argument in favor of the mortality of the soul, this is hardly cogent.

THE FEAR OF DEATH 1

(III., 894 seq.)

"No more shall look upon thy face
Sweet spouse, no more with emulous race
Sweet children court their sire's embrace.2

"To their soft touch right soon no more

Thy pulse shall thrill; e'en now is o'er
Thy stewardship, Death is at the door.

"One dark day wresteth every prize

From hapless man in hapless wise,
Yea, e'en the pleasure of his eyes.

Thus men bewail their piteous lot;
Yet should they add, ""Tis all forgot,
These things the dead man recketh not."

Yea, could they knit for them this chain
Of words and reasons, men might gain
Some dull narcotic for their pain,

Saying, "The dead are dead indeed;
The dead, from all heart-sickness freed,
Sleep and shall sleep and take no heed."

Lo, if dumb Nature found a voice,
Would she bemoan, and not make choice
To bid poor mortals to rejoice,

5

10

15

20

The use of the metre of Tennyson's Two Voices was suggested to Mr. Tyrrell by the similarity of theme. See his Latin Poetry, p. 72. The first three stanzas are put into the mouth of some friend of the deceased, while the rest of the selection gives the Epicurean view. 2 Comparison with Gray's Elegy is inevitable.

66

Saying, "Why weep thy wane, O man?
Wert joyous e'en when life began,
When thy youth's sprightly freshets ran?

'Nay, all the joys thy life e'er knew
As poured into a sieve fell through,
And left thee but to rail and rue."

Go, fool, as doth a well-filled guest
Sated of life with tranquil breast
Take thine inheritance of rest.

Why seekest joys that soon must pale
Their feeble fires, and swell the tale
Of things of nought and no avail ?

Die, sleep! For all things are the same;
Tho' spring now stir thy crescent frame,
'T will wither all things are the same.

:

R. Y. TYRRELL.

THE HONEY OF THE MUSES

(IV., 1-25.)

25

30

35

I TRAVERSE the pathless haunts of the Pierides 1 never yet trodden by sole of man. I love to approach the untasted springs and to quaff, I love to cull fresh flowers and gather for my head a distinguished crown. from spots whence the muses have yet veiled the brows of none; first because I teach of great things and essay to release the mind from the fast bonds of religious scruples, and next because on a dark subject I pen such lucid verses o'erlaying all with the muses' charm.

1 The muses.

For that too would seem to be not without good grounds even as physicians when they propose to give nauseous wormwood to children, first smear the rim round the bowl with the sweet yellow juice of honey, that the unthinking age of children may be fooled as far as the lips, and meanwhile drink up the bitter draught of wormwood and though beguiled yet not betrayed, but rather by such means recover health and strength: so I now, since this doctrine seems generally somewhat bitter to those by whom it has not been handled, and the multitude shrinks back from it in dismay, have resolved to set forth to you our doctrine in sweet-toned Pierian verse and o'erlay it as it were with the pleasant honey of the muses, if happily by such means I might engage your mind on my verses, till such time as you apprehend all the nature of things and thoroughly feel what use it has.

H. A. J. MUNRO.

LOVE'S EXTRAVAGANCE 1

(IV.,

1121-1191.)

THEN too they 2 waste their strength and ruin themselves by the labor, then too their life is passed at the beck of another. Meanwhile their estate runs away and is turned into Babylonian coverlets; duties are neglected and their good name staggers and sickens. On her feet laugh elastic and beautiful Sicyonian shoes, yes, and large emeralds with green light are set in gold and the sea-colored dress is worn constantly and much

3

1 Love finds a place in Lucretius's poem as one of the phenomena connected with the senses, which constitute the theme of the fourth book. 2 He has been speaking of lovers. 3. From Sicyon, a town in the northeast of the Peloponnesus.